This has been on my mind since I first started playing and realized a simple truth to SWTOR...

 

NPCs of the same type (pretty much all unnamed NPCs) all look exactly the same.

They're essentially all clones of each other.

And while this issue isn't really an issue for races like the Killix, when it comes to humanoid races, it just looks awkward, in my opinion.

 

Every single "Anti-Empire Collaborator" looks exactly the same.

Every single "White Maw Pirate" looks exactly the same.

And so on and so forth.

 

Same body type, same exact facial features, same exact customizations in general.

 

And given how simplistic the character creation in SWTOR is, and how all the playable races share the same structure and the same animations, I just have one question...

 

Why don't the unnamed humanoid NPCs in the game have randomized appearances?

Bumping once.

You both forgot "The force will set me free" It comes after "My chains are broken".

I bet we all look the same to those unnamed NPCs too. Edited January 10, 2012 by MrPigCS

Why don't the unnamed humanoid NPCs in the game have randomized appearances?

+1

 

It's just another thing that makes the game look unpolished

Agreed, the story is wonderful but the game has almost zero atmosphere.

 

-NPCs all look the same.

-Very little ambient noise, unless you're in combat all you can hear are your own footsteps.

-Most zones are incredibly empty and barren, even those that are on city-planets

Because it would have cost more money, taken more time and that would defeat the business model of this game which in summary is: Make as much money off you as possible.

 

If you wanted to play a game with artistic detail, ATTENTION to detail at all......you would probably have to look for an MMO that came out more than 3 years ago. Since then, these games are just being pushed out on the market faster than the fed can print fake greenbacks.

Well lets see, right now npc models are all on your client and not on the server, server only contains ther location coordinates etc. Lets imagine their appearance was randomise you would either have to store those random values on the client or have the server do randomisation and send it to everyone, which for a zone full of mobs might cause some lag id imagine. And as for storing it on your client, I can only guess their reason is for cases like "hey focus fire this black guy", "what black guy they r all white on my screen". Which is my honest opinion wouldn't really matter anyway if npcs appeared differently on my screen than on other people screens. But those are just my guesses anyway. I would prefer randomisation as well even with the above mentioned downside.

Because it would have cost more money, taken more time and that would defeat the business model of this game which in summary is: Make as much money off you as possible.

 

If you wanted to play a game with artistic detail, ATTENTION to detail at all......you would probably have to look for an MMO that came out more than 3 years ago. Since then, these games are just being pushed out on the market faster than the fed can print fake greenbacks.

 

I seriously wonder where all the money went, seeing game as unfinished and lackping totally basic polish as this. It makes me be wary of games future if it costs so much to release such bug ridden, basically multiplayer game (it sure as hell is not mmo). Some may say - every game is bugged at launch. Yeah but not everyone used as much of money to produce such dissapointing pile of ... (I had fun at first but then I just started to notice more and more bugs and basic design limitations of this game). Seeing as most important bugs are squashed at a underwhelming pace I will resub in about half a year if there will be any sub to pay that is.

Edited January 10, 2012 by tehehe

Well lets see, right now npc models are all on your client and not on the server, server only contains ther location coordinates etc. Lets imagine their appearance was randomise you would either have to store those random values on the client or have the server do randomisation and send it to everyone, which for a zone full of mobs might cause some lag id imagine. And as for storing it on your client.Which is my honest opinion wouldn't really matter anyway if npcs appeared differently on my screen than on other people screens. But those are just my guesses anyway. I would prefer randomisation as well even with the above mentioned downside.

 

^^^^ This. 10,000 people on each server with randomized stats for each NPC in an area. People already complain about lag and FPS issue. Lets do this too. You also have to create some generic animation model that would fit with each randmoized model. I can just imagine the horrendous looking models that would come out, just think Borderlands but with NPCs.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Phoenixblight

Murder and mayhem await.

People already complain about lag and FPS issue.

 

That has nothing to do with content and everything to do with technical flaws, either in the game's technical coding or the players' systems.

 

You also have to create some generic animation model that would fit with each randmoized model.

 

Wrong.

 

There is no technical reason to not randomize unnamed NPC appearances.

Its like they made an area, decided it looked dead and copy pasted the same NPC in a few times to fill it up.

 

If you want an example go roll a new jedi/consular in the very first bit after you leave the initial storey area, before the taxi, there are 6 yes 6 of the same NPC, two by each door and two in the middle.

 

<coppy pasted from a thread I made, as I did not know about this one, no search function>

They mostly look the same because there are so few appearance options altogether, and many of the ones available do not create a significantly different appearance.

 

Yes there are many combos, but seeing an Imperial Officer with outlandish facial make-up and a mohawk would be a bit immersion-breaking. And so right off the top your options are severely cut down.

 

This is why I was so surprised by the limited character creator: we are going to spend so much time looking right at character/NPC faces due to conversation scenes that you would think that they would want a vast number of different facial and body options available.

They mostly look the same because there are so few appearance options altogether, and many of the ones available do not create a significantly different appearance.

 

Yes there are many combos, but seeing an Imperial Officer with outlandish facial make-up and a mohawk would be a bit immersion-breaking. And so right off the top your options are severely cut down.

 

This is why I was so surprised by the limited character creator: we are going to spend so much time looking right at character/NPC faces due to conversation scenes that you would think that they would want a vast number of different facial and body options available.

 

Randomized body types would already make a hell of a difference.

 

But no... they are all EXACTLY the same.

That has nothing to do with content and everything to do with technical flaws, either in the game's technical coding or the players' systems.

 

 

 

Wrong.

 

There is no technical reason to not randomize unnamed NPC appearances.

 

Please if it is so easy why do you think no developer even in single player games has not done this. Yeah...thought so.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Phoenixblight

Please if it is so easy why do you think no developer even in single player games has not done this. Yeah...thought so.

 

I've never come across a game that uses clone NPCs to this extent. really Its quite shockingly bad.

What!?!?! Don't take away the Village People cloned Jedi Guardians at the temple, it's so freaking cool to see a whole cloned army of mustached men protecting the vital areas.

 

I figure that at any minute they are about to break out in to a great round of YMCA every time I have to venture to these sacred grounds.... Ooohhh...they are the inspiration for the cloned army - all inspired by the great Village People Jedi Guardians at the Jedi Temple. Who knew...

Edited January 10, 2012 by Lascivious

I agree. It's really bad.

 

I just did some Nar Shadda quests. I'd walk down one hallway, and the only way to tell if this next batch of NPCs were hostile was to mouse over them.

Visually, they looked identical to the previous bunch of NPCs. They were standing around, not doing anything; certainly didn't look hostile. And guess what? Not only were they not hostile, mousing over them didn't reveal anything. They weren't even clickable NPCs. They were just there for decoration. Lame.

So I go around another corner. Looks just like the last hallway, NPCs look just the same, too. Mousing over these NPCs... Oh, these are hostile for some reason. No explanation on why this particular section of the hallway planet has hostile NPCs in it, but at least these are clickable.

 

This game spent every cent it had to pay for voiceovers, but didn't spend any time at all on level design. Sure, there's some pretty stuff sometimes, but most of the levels are so incredibly boring! None of this is what I expected from a Star Wars game... It's such a letdown from what this game could have been.

Please if it is so easy why do you think no developer even in single player games has not done this. Yeah...thought so.

 

lol

 

I've got a game on my phone that has NPCs with randomized appearances. Never know what the next one is going to look like.

 

It's not impossible to do, these guys just didn't do it.

 

Even if they didn't go with randomizing the NPCs appearance at spawn time, they could have added a lot more variety... But they didn't do that, either.

They either went cheap or had to rush the game out for Xmas. Either way, it's just one more sign of a completely unpolished game.

They either went cheap or had to rush the game out for Xmas.

 

Or both. I refuse to believe 300 million went entirely into voice acting. Some of it must've gone into someone's deep pockets to release such an unfinished product.

 

The RPG is there, and it's great, but the technical product is terribad.

Because they had no money left after paying for all the voice acting and beach houses.

 

Someone somewhere at Bioware bought a fking castle with the swtor budget.

Edited January 11, 2012 by dargor-

It's a tech limitation issue mainly. Randomizing NPC appearance in real time is silly, and doesn't make much sense (because everything would be different not only for everyone else, but every time you played). But utilizing the character generation engine to create varying NPCs and baking them into the game - this is much more doable. The problems, however, are mainly related to memory usage and draw rate. Characters use more assets than NPCs - they are not the same category of art asset. It was probably prohibitive framerate-wise to have NPCs the same as player characters. Traditionally, NPCs are cheated on a bit to make them much less expensive to make and to animate, and to draw.

 

Personally, I feel it's time games found a way to do it, as I agree NPCs across the board in MMOs are cheezy in the extreme. The systems to do it are there, it just takes the will on behalf of developers and production to fine tune things so it will work in an MMO environment where you can never be certain what and how many things will be on screen at any given time.

Edited January 11, 2012 by kmontyw

It does not feel like murder when I kill a clone. I would have serious ethic problems if every NPC would be unique.

 

For the Moment I can say "Hey I can sloughter him again and he is only 40 meters next to me!!!" - It really feels good